MGM are, and have been for many years, deal­ing with sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial debts, to the tune of almost $4bn. With con­cerns about the company’s sol­vency, a recent con­fer­ence call debated whether the stu­dio should file for bank­ruptcy in a bid to gain back some of the oth­er­wise lost money.

Should this hap­pen, MGM’s assets might be sold to cover the debts, includ­ing the rights to the James Bond fran­chise, the poten­tial Robo­Cop remake could never see the light of day. This would inevitably delay Bond 23, and who knows what else.

MGM’s cur­rent plan is to con­vince cred­i­tors to waiver inter­est pay­ments until Jan­u­ary 2010, with that money instead going to fund new movies. There’s a lot up in the air right now, but we’ll keep you posted.

The team at Time Out have writ­ten an open let­ter to Bond 23 writer Peter Mor­gan, with a cou­ple of Dos and Don’ts. Included are — find inter­est­ing and excit­ing loca­tions, do not copy the Bourne series, make the Bond girl a piv­otal role, give char­ac­ters room to breathe.

The let­ter openly praises Casino Royale’s approach, but is quick to point out the flaws in Quan­tum of Solace.

Dear Peter,

While we at Time Out are thrilled that you, one of our country’s most tal­ented and inquir­ing screen­writ­ers, have accepted the chal­lenge of pen­ning the next James Bond movie, there are a few salient points we feel you might like to keep in mind while writ­ing what will inevitably become one of 2011’s most impor­tant and, we hope, enjoy­able movies. We trust you accept our advice in the friendly spirit with which it’s intended…

Please give the char­ac­ters room to breathe
Per­haps the great­est stride writ­ers Neal Purvis, Robert Wade and erst­while col­league Paul Hag­gis made with ‘Casino Royale’ was giv­ing Bond and his com­pan­ions a real sense of life, depth and emo­tional con­flict. We’re used to Bond the wise­crack­ing automa­ton, but with an actor like Daniel Craig in the role this approach is a ter­ri­ble waste. ‘Quan­tum of Solace’ reduced Bond to lit­tle more than grunts and sneers – a smart thug who faces off against a loqua­cious but rather pathetic vil­lain. You’ve already proved your worth as a mas­ter of ver­bal spar­ring in your pre­vi­ous scripts, so we’re sure you’ll have the mur­der­ous ban­ter down pat. The chal­lenge will be to make us care about Bond again.

Please respect your audi­ence
There’s no doubt that the best of Bond is revealed when there’s a strong sto­ry­line packed with twists, switch­backs and dou­ble crosses: just think of Sean Bean’s decep­tion in ‘Gold­en­eye’, or Vesper’s betrayal in ‘Casino’. As long as your action sequences are grip­ping and your char­ac­ters con­vinc­ingly moti­vated, there’s no crime in keep­ing the viewer guessing.

Please don’t waste your Bond girls
Another of the great plea­sures offered by ‘Casino Royale’ was the chance to see Bond con­fronted by female char­ac­ters who could hold their own: not just Eva Green’s schem­ing Ves­per, but Judi Dench’s frac­tious, com­mand­ing M. Dench was the best thing in ‘Quan­tum’, but she was let down by Olga Kurylenko’s fiery but under­used Camille. It’s a les­son the mak­ers of Bond have been long in learn­ing: these women can be more than just eye-candy. A strong female lead doesn’t just cen­tre the film, she allows writ­ers and audi­ences a chance to get to the core of Bond himself.

Please don’t remake the Bourne series
Both ‘Casino’ and ‘Quan­tum’ were clearly inspired by the down­beat real­ism of the Bourne tril­ogy, but while the for­mer bal­anced gritty action sequences with a wry streak of self-deprecating humour, the writ­ers and direc­tor of ‘Quan­tum’ seemed con­tent with an end­less parade of repet­i­tive shaky­cam punch-ups in grimy locales. So, while action is clearly the lifeblood of the series, remem­ber that Bond always ben­e­fits from a moment of lev­ity amid the mayhem.

Please show us some­thing we haven’t seen before
It’s hard to think of any­where Bond hasn’t been (Antarc­tica? Ever­est? Leam­ing­ton Spa?), but one of ‘Quan­tum’ direc­tor Marc Forster’s bet­ter accom­plish­ments was pick­ing some stun­ning inter­na­tional loca­tions, from the seedy streets of Panama and the bar­ren Ata­cama Desert in Chile to the grandiose opera house at Lake Con­stance in Aus­tria. While the old Bonds were increas­ingly con­fined to traips­ing between MI6 and Moscow bat­tling the same face­less, jab­ber­ing Russkies, the global nature of the new films’ mys­te­ri­ous con­spir­acy means that Bond can now head just about any­where, and beat up just about anyone.

Finally, we await the Bond pro­duc­ers’ choice of direc­tor with bated breath. Some inter­est­ing names have been rumoured, though we under­stand Danny Boyle has offi­cially denied all knowl­edge and Christo­pher Nolan is busy with all that Bat­man busi­ness. But the Bond films have never been about the big-name direc­tors; in fact, with names like Ian Flem­ing, Roald Dahl and Paul Hag­gis, you could say it’s one of the few major film series where the choice of writer actu­ally mat­ters more than the choice of direc­tor. Which is where you come in, Mr Morgan.

MTV are report­ing, via an anony­mous source, that British born actor Michael Sheen will play Blofeld in Bond 23. The cre­ative process for Bond 23 only started very recently, pos­si­bly just this month. Any cast­ing rumors should be taken with a grain of salt, although this spec­u­la­tive cast­ing is both excit­ing and encour­ag­ing and would pre­sum­ably offer a new look for the arche­typal Ernst Stavro Blofeld villain.

Mul­ti­ple Oscar win­ner Peter Mor­gan is co-scripting the Bond movie — he and Sheen have worked together on numer­ous occa­sions, includ­ing “The Queen” and “Frost/Nixon”. This long stand­ing writer-actor rela­tion­ship gives some sig­nif­i­cant weight to the rumor; and we already know Mor­gan has the Midas touch when writ­ing for Sheen — this could be good, very good.

MTV caught up with Quan­tum of Solace direc­tor Marc Forster to ask him about Bond 23:

“They asked me if I wanted to […] I’ll never say never again, but at this point I would say no.”

As for what he would like to see in the next Bond movie, Forster added:

“It really depends on what direc­tion they want to take it. […] For me, I wanted to take it to a harder and darker place, but now that that jour­ney I’ve gone on has suc­ceeded, I feel like the next one can take it to a bit more humor­ous place again.”

“I feel like next time you should take it in a lighter and more humor­ous way, maybe add a few more girls and a bit more sex – all that kind of stuff […] I think that would be inter­est­ing.”

Speak­ing in the UK’s Metro news­pa­per, Daniel Craig briefly com­mented on the sched­ule for Bond 23:

‘[Dame Judi] is great. I’m sure she will be back when we get rolling again next year.’

When in 2010 we don’t know, not really help­ing us guess the next release date. Mean­while Michael G Wil­son com­mented at the Brad­ford Inter­na­tional Film Fes­ti­val that no fur­ther, sig­nif­i­cant work on Bond 23 has yet taken place:

The only news Wil­son broke about the next Bond film is that there is no news at all. He said there had been no sig­nif­i­cant work done on the next entry.

I think we can almost cer­tainly cast these as fake in the cat­e­gory of rumor mon­ger­ing for the sake of jump­ing on the back of another movie’s suc­cess to sell news­pa­per copies. The Sun report that Slum­dog Mil­lion­aire star Freida Pinto has been invited to screen test for James Bond 23 — pro­duc­ers were sup­pos­edly impressed by her dur­ing cast­ing for Quan­tum of Solace, but at that time she was too young to play a ‘secret agent’s lover’.

The Sun are con­tin­u­ing with their already debunked Danny Boyle to direct rumor. Maybe Dev Patel will be the next Bond?

This was a short lived rumor, and as our instincts told us, it was best not to trust the Sun’s news story how­ever plau­si­ble it seemed. Last week The Sun broke the news, amidst a flurry of Slum­dog Mil­lion­aire atten­tion, that Boyle was inline to take the helm of James Bond 23. In response, a spokesper­son for Boyle recently announced to WENN:

‘While Danny says he always has and always will enjoy the Bond movies he has no plans to direct one. Danny is nat­u­rally flat­tered to be thought of!’